The Separation Obligation
by WeBuiltThePyramids
Summary: Spoilers for The Prestidigitation Approximation.  Penny is walking away from Leonard for one reason only:  because she has to.


**This is a drabble for a LiveJournal challenge that I had a feeling would become longer. And it has. Here it is in it's full expansion – it has very detailed spoilers for The Prestidigitation Approximation, and vague spoilers for pretty much everything before that. However, none of those spoilers (except for allusions to The Wheaton Recurrence) are obvious enough for one who hasn't seen the episode to distinguish on what is a spoiler and what is not. The only episode that can be done for is 4.18.**

**DISCLAIMER: If I owned these characters, my heart wouldn't ache so much for them right now. They wouldn't be walking away. They'd be in each other's arms.**

She's walking away again. She doesn't want to. She doesn't want to walk away because she feels like she's doing some warped Walk of Shame where the shame is in loss. She feels like with every step she takes from now on is surrendering, abandoning him – them, and standing idly by while his relationship with Priya blossoms and grows stronger, even though the flame that still burns in her heart isn't going out. She doesn't know if this means that she has to find a way to snuff it, or if it'll continue to burn and intensify whenever she did happen to see him no matter what she does to try and cover it up. Right now she doesn't think anything can put it out, but she has realized that it at least needs to be downsized. She wonders if that's possible when she can't even see him.

She can hear him call after her, asking her to wait, and his voice wraps around her heart and squeezes until she feels like she's going to die, but she keeps on walking. She can't go back; its better this way and turning around would make it even more complicated. She's already screwed him up once; the last thing she wants to do is cause him more hurt and she knows that if he sees her 'on the down low' or attempts to keep them friends in anyway he'll eventually get caught and Priya would look at him with those eyes that were prettier than Penny wanted to admit, and those eyes would show hurt or disappointment and Leonard would be torn again. What hurt the most was that their good – bye showed Penny for sure that, despite his request that she move away, he does still care about her and she never wants to let that go, because he's one of the few people that she actually cares deeply for, too.

She cringes when she hears him hit the door; she wants to run over and cup his face in her hands as she makes sure he's okay. If his eyes are watering from the pain and contacts at this very moment she wants to brush the tears away and pretend she doesn't see them for the sake of his embarrassment. She wants to guide him up the stairs and make sure he doesn't hit anything else – because the collision of him and the door sounded like it _hurt_. A lot. Her own face hurts just thinking about it. She wants to at least turn and say "hey, clumsy, your new eyes still aren't working, huh?" and tease him even though she loves his glasses.

But she can't. She can't let herself do it. Her weakness for him is just too strong and whenever she does this, whenever she walks, she has to walk quickly and confidently away and not look back. Because if she even turns her head she knows she'll see his face and rush back, and she understands now, even though it hurts her so badly to admit it, that she's no longer the woman that Leonard cuddles up to and says "that's my girl." She's no longer the woman who gets to hear the guys talk about his past girlfriends and think to herself how much it sucked to be them, because now she has him and they don't. Now, she's one of them, the ex who clearly doesn't measure up to the new one, even though it wasn't Leonard that ended their relationship. Penny still feels like Priya doesn't belong with him; she doesn't fit and how could Leonard care for her so much after the experiences that he and Penny had had together? She knows the answer. She just hates to think about it.

She's out the door now, heading down the street, walking slowly because she still feels like each step is a ribbon that she's wrapping around Leonard as she presents him to Priya. She's still thinking about how much Leonard's eyes and nose probably hurt right now. And he still has to get up the stairs. She feels like she's left an injured friend out in the cold because she can't control her own heart. But she still knows that it's better that way.

She remembers telling him _you are an important part of my life_ and it's so true, then, now, and for a long time before she said that. She always figured, even after Priya showed up, that at the very least she could be close to him. At the very least, they could be friends. But now the cord was cut. They were simply neighbors. And she knows that to give Leonard and Priya's relationship the fair shot that every relationship deserves, she has to part from him.

And so, for the second time in as many years, Penny is walking away from Leonard when deep down – or not so deep down – it's the last thing in the ever expanding universe that she wants to do.

**In case this hasn't been conveyed in the fic, I am really, really, really missing our Leonard and Penny right now. :( That last episode really made me emotional (which I feel I should be embarassed about but I can't help it). Let me know what you thought? Maybe in a pretty little review? :D**


End file.
